Womenize! Wednesday Weekly is our weekly series featuring inspirational women from games and tech. For this edition we talked to Carolin Wendt, the Community Manager of CD Projekt RED. Read more about Carolin in this interview:

Hi Carolin! You are a Community Manager for the German-speaking region at CD Projekt Red. Before that you were project manager for the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur. What led you to the job change?

During the four years at my former job, I learned that I had a great passion for communication and event organization. Furthermore, I wanted to tackle something new I haven’t done so far and challenge myself – and the job as Community Manager combined all of these requirements perfectly. Furthermore, community management deeply benefits from a strong foundational knowledge in project management, so I guess my job change isn’t as big as it looks at first glance.

At our last Womenize! Event you held a talk about Community Management and how important it is to build a bridge between community and developers. What is the most important thing for you as a Community Manager when it comes to interacting with your own community?

I think the focus needs to shift more to the positive impacts a well-managed community can have for people’s life overall. Bringing them together both on- and offline – instead of just talking to them in a monologue – is an extremely valuable (and fulfilling) thing. During my childhood and youth, I was lucky enough to be part of several communities that gave me a place where I could be myself and develop passions. If I can give back only a fraction of what my communities have done for me to other people, I’d be extremely grateful – and I think this aspect of positivity and potential empowerment deserves much more attention than it gets.

As the project manager for the Stiftung Digitale Spielekultur, you were also the organizer behind the Fake Jam 2018, a game jam dedicated to the ongoing discussions around fake news and their potential risks. What kind of responsibility do you think has the games industry as a whole in this regard?

Video games as a mass medium are experienced by an extremely large amount of players. I personally am convinced that art – which includes games – can shape perceptions and understanding of big social issues. Therein lies a great opportunity for video games and the industry in general to speak up about topics that otherwise might not get the spotlight they deserve.

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